Saturday, October 8, 2016

Baiting the Phisherman

It’s happened to all of us. That
email from a friend that is out of town and lost their wallet and needs you to
help get home. It leaves me to wonder if anyone really buys that. Anyhow I got
an email this morning, only this one was from David Huffstetler, the awesome
writer of the Jack Harden series. The subject heading was ‘Sad News’. Being an
author myself, I thought, oh, he’s reaching out to me. To me, something must have been
going on with Amazon. Then I opened the email. Ah, gees, …. Poor David is
stranded after a successful tour and needs me to Western Union him money
because the hotel is keeping his luggage hostage. Forget that hotels get your
credit card information when you check in.

Obviously, we all know it to be a
scam. BUT… but … what if this scam actually hurt David. We can laugh about it,
but seriously, this person is using his name. What if some of his fans didn’t
know and really wanted to help out their favorite author? I can see a few of my
fans doing that. Wanting to help me. not 1,950 worth of help but still.

So I decided I was gonna get this
guy. He was phishing and I was going to bait him. Now I know I am not the first
nor will I be the last person to mess with a phisher, honestly, I thought I
would be the one to catch him.

Maybe not. Anyhow, here is our
exchange. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Obviously this guy is serious. He
didn’t even read my email. So I replied,

Then when he didn’t respond to Baby
Roo…. I tried one more time.

Suffice to say I haven’t heard back …
yet. But if you get a chance, check out the real David’s books.